Hundreds protest in Taipei after student suicide

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Taipei in the early hours if Friday calling for the education minister to resign after a student committed suicide, amid a deepening row over the island's "China-centric" school curriculum.
Over 200 people, some holding white roses and candles, congregated outside the education ministry at midnight to bid farewell to 20-year-old Lin Kuan-hua, who police said killed himself in his New Taipei City home Thursday morning.
Lin was reportedly one of 30 students, along with three journalists, who were arrested last week for breaking into the ministry in anger at controversial changes to the high school curriculum, which students say favour China's view of the island's history.

"We will not let Lin Kuan-hua die in vain!" Chu-chen, a spokesman for the student protest group, told the growing crowd, as chants calling for Education Minister Wu Se-hwa to step down rang out.
Students broke down part of a fence outside the ministry and sat in front of a police line guarding the building. Others attempted to cut through more of the wire fencing with garden shears.
Some of the protesters had earlier burnt pictures of Wu along with pieces of paper, a Chinese mourning custom, as they waited outside the ministry under the watchful eye of dozens of police standing behind barricades.

Lin's death comes as tensions are running high over fears that China is exerting greater influence over Taiwan, a self-ruling island which split from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war but which Beijing still sees it as part of its territory.
The 20-year-old, who dropped out of vocational school in June, was reportedly facing charges of breaching government premises and causing damage after breaking into the education ministry last week.
"Relatives have expressed that Lin was in a bad mood last night after returning home from a meeting about the education ministry curriculum change," a statement from the ministry said.